


Cold Iron Bound

by Merovignian



Category: The Laundry Files - Charles Stross
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst, Mentions of Hippo Arse Leeches, Mild Sexual Content, Optimism, explicit hand holding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-15
Updated: 2019-02-02
Packaged: 2019-02-07 03:44:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12832599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merovignian/pseuds/Merovignian
Summary: Whilst Alex and Cassie are treated better than the rest of the Host, a prison camp on Dartmoor isn't exactly the greatest place to pursue a blossoming romance. Nonetheless, they do their best.Chapter 3: In which Alex has something of a captive audience for his brainstorming. Death Rays are involved.





	1. List

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Our heroes look to the future and plan how to spend their free time once released. Assuming they're going to have the sort of future where 'free time' is a meaningful concept, of course. You have to be optimistic about these things.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Laundry Files series belongs to Charles Stross. I'm merely messing with a few characters I liked. In keeping with his fanfic policy: In the highly unlikely event that any fanfiction I write now or in the future resembles anything he later writes it can be assumed to be a coincidence, and in any case I would never claim ownership of it. Nor am I going to lever any of this in an attempt to gain money. I don't want to piss off a glittery and avaricious dragon.
> 
> On a separate note, I sometimes edit works after I've posted them. Not in any huge way, but in my experience it doesn't matter how often you check a piece of writing—there's always some formatting issue, spelling error or utterly stupid bunch of sentences that don't become obvious until after you've plastered the damn thing online for the world to see. No matter.

 

"Dancing?"

"YesYes! We'll go to a dance class! It'll be romantic!"

"Well, if you think so..." Alex trails off doubtfully as Cassie snatches her favourite pen, a shiny fountain affair she obtained through dubious measures back in Leeds and has kept ever since. She scrawls down the words _Dance class, for couples_ on the crisp sheet of printer paper that lies on the table before them and finishes with a flourish.

The pair sit side by side in what could pass for a sparsely furnished living room supposing you don't look too closely, one in button-up shirt and work trousers and the other in gothic chic made for a girl several inches shorter. They stare, sometimes at each other, but mostly at the slowly growing list written on the A4 sheet that lies on the table before them. It had been Alex's idea, or at least his idly voiced thought borne of years spent soberly organising revision timetables and thesis plans, but Cassie took the idea and ran away with it and now here they were, sat on the sofa thinking of all the things they'd do together after they were free.

It really made Alex feel like a prisoner, putting it like that.

At the top of the sheet he had written the words _Date Plans_ in neat biro handwriting; subsequently his new girlfriend had amended _Cassie and Alex's Wonderful List of Fun and Romantic_ — to the start, dotting the I's with hearts and surrounding the words with flowery bubbles. When not chatting about ideas or cuddling up to him in ways that he's just about gotten used to at this point in their nervewrattling and illuminating courtship, she adorns the margins with occult imagery and pictures of cats.

At the top of the list is _Fancy Dinner_. Alex's bank balance will weep for that supposing he still has a job after this mess, he notes with a hint of sourness which dissipates at the image of his fairy queen in a pretty dress, smiling into his eyes over a candlelit table with no sign of the annoyance so often visible on her now, frustrated with the dearth of activity on this damp and dreary moor. He thinks of them sharing their food, Cassie giggling, maybe nudging him with her shoe under the table before running one foot up his leg with a teasing, sparkling, faux-innocent smile—

 _Save it for the bedroom, Alex_ he tells himself, mouth suddenly dry. Cassie for her part leans over the paper, humming intently. Alex twitches as he looks at the monstrosity she's drawn; a unicorn, albeit with wider and more expressive eyes than any of those he's seen gorging themselves in the camp or haunting his nightmares of Malham Cove. He's just about resigned himself by the time he notices the chibi figures she's drawing on its back, holding hands whilst little hearts bob around their heads. His cheeks colour slightly, and he gets an idea. A memory of her voice echoes in his head, from those halcyon days when all he had to worry about was not totalling Pinky's Kettenkrad: _I haven't had that much fun since I borrowed one of Daddy's sparkle ponies for a joyride!_

"Cassie, you liked driving, right? Have you ever been on a rollercoaster? Why don't we go to an amusement park?" She pauses halfway through drawing the chibi vampire's left fang, then wheels to face him with wide eyes.

"That is a _fantastic_ idea! When I was in— I mean, I remember— Well anyway, if we're up north again we'll go to Flamingo Land! And if we end up in your capital there's a much better one, isn't there? Lets go on all the biggest, fastest rides, and eat candyfloss in the sun and get sugar headaches and-"

"Thorpe Park, I think you mean. Yeah. But um, maybe we should wait until autumn for that one?" She stares for a moment, uncomprehending. "I mean, if we go in summer there'll be kids everywhere, we'll have to queue for hours, and there's my skin..."

"Oh!" Cassie bops herself on the head. "Silly me, I'm not thinking properly, am I? You're right, we'll go once things have calmed down in autumn. Lets check the weather forecasts so it's overcast, we'll pack extra suncream and makeup for you and I'll get you a hat so we can have fun without worrying about your poor skin. Oh wait, I remember! Thorpe Park has the Halloween mazes, right? I was in one of those near York once, they're really fun! We'll do those too!"

 _Just as long as there's no Dracula_ Alex thinks as _Amusement Park!!!!!_ joins the list beneath _Laser Tag_ and _Escape Room_. In truth he's scared of rollercoasters, and heights, but he'd agree to go _skydiving_ with her if it made her happy, made him feel like less of a pathetic failure of a boyfriend getting her stuck in this, this _prison_ with nothing to do all day but play chess and watch the rain—

Cassie kisses him on the cheek, slitted eyes ablaze. "That was a good one, sweetie! Do you have any other ideas?"

_Don't say skydiving, for the love of god._

"Er, well, remember when we met? The second time." He clarifies as she tilts her head adorably, raven hair occulting half her face. She's going to cut it off, she says, for ease of using the hair dye she's brought with her into confinement. It's something she's been enthusiastic about lately, and she's asked for his fashion-blind opinion on what colour, what style she should inflict upon her jet-black locks. He told her she'd look beautiful no matter what she did, but feels he tripped up by being overly literal and clarifying that he didn't mean he wanted her to, say, give herself a buzzcut or turn it into some waxed widow's peak or what have you. But Cassie is getting good at powering through Alex's odd stumbles, and all she did was playfully roll her eyes.

What he didn't have the heart to say is that he thinks the colour is perfect as it is, that he likes running his fingers through her long hair and that the thought of losing it makes him feel a little sad.

"When we met in Leeds, remember the Royal Armouries? Would you like to go there some time? It's pretty interesting." Cassie doesn't look too enthused, but she gives the matter thought. A few weeks ago Alex would have stumbled over his words explaining himself, afraid that he'd said something foolish. But they're closer now. Besides, he recognises that look: it means she's trying to sort through the garbled mess of memories in her head.

"I suppose it might be." She says at last. "I remember being there once. There was armour without any wards on, like your friend's...And a machine where you put your name in, and it told you how many people with that name died in your Second World War! YesYes, I remember! And we had meatballs and chips for tea in the cafe then it rained on the way home..." She smiles wistfully whilst Alex reminds himself that "I remember being" is not the same as "I was".

"Oh!" She snaps back to the present. "We should go to the cinema again! Why didn't we put that down at the start?"

Alex isn't quite as enthusiastic on this one. "Sure, but mightn't we be sick of movies by the time we get out of here?" They burned through their supply of films pretty quickly, but the crummy DVD player in their prison-flat still sees a lot of use. Not that they tend to make it to the halfway mark anymore without getting distracted, mind.

"Don't be silly! Movies are great! It's only annoying now because of the, the, the venue, that's it! And because there's so little else to do! It'll be better in moderation, and when we can go to a cinema and buy snacks and see the big screen and everything, and go on walks afterwards where we talk about nice things and you can maybe try to be romantic this time around—"

"Are you still going on about that?"

"I'll have you know I went very easy on you about that. Because I am very understanding and gentle, YesYes? I recognise when I am being insensitive and I do not hold a grudge. But if you ever want to show how much you appreciate my kindheartedness, I would not say no to chocolate and flowers."

"I'd love to treat you." He really would. "But there's a strange lack of florists and chocolatiers around here. Who would have thought a military prison would be so spartan? Nothing I can do, sorry."

"That's okay! You can treat me in other ways!" It is at this point that Alex realises he's fallen into a trap.

"You could comb my hair for me, tell me I'm pretty, eat me up—"

Alex tries to correct her phraseology, but she speaks far too quickly.  
  
"...rub my shoulders, and my back, and my—"

The young vampire sighs, lies back on the sofa and listens with one ear as Cassie gabbles on. Looks like he's going to have a busy day ahead of him. Not that he minds pampering his lovely maniac pixie, but he has some vague idea that he shouldn't come across as too enthusiastic to kowtow to her every whim. Nobody wants a complete doormat, surely, and he certainly remembers Pete's advice back in Leeds: he doesn't want to go too far and turn into some movie's creepy lovestruck stereotype. Even if a possibly unhealthy amount of his self-validation comes from keeping Cassie content and happy.

Alex's mind drifts to further ideas— he's often found himself wondering what places would be best to take someone whilst drifting around alone. It takes time to dredge through those wistful ideas for the gold, but time is one of the few luxuries they have here at Camp Tolkien, and so he sets to it. York is nice this time of year, isn't it? Old fashioned, with shops built into centuries-old buildings and pretty riverside walks, even if corpses have to be dredged out of the unfortunately pronounced Ouse river from time to time. It could be a nice place for a day trip, with the flowers blooming under the walls so you can walk along them and look out over daffodils and parsley and...damnit, they close them at dusk, don't they? And the place might be a bit dull for Cassie. Wait, back in London wasn't there a bar made entirely out of ice?

"...and then I could dig out my Bride of Dracula outfit again and you can pretend to be Jonathan Harker— "

After a time his thoughts taper off, and Alex decides he won't add any more things to the list right now. They've done enough. After all, if they blew through their every idea today, there'd be nothing to entertain them in the days and weeks to follow. Best to keep it fresh, so that their minds can wander to the future when the present drags. Besides, as much as he enjoys the sense of certainty that comes with writing things down, nailing them down in plans and charts like pinned butterflies, well...the simple fact that he can think about cute, silly, fun and hopefully romantic things is even more comforting.

"Alex, are you listening to me?"

"Yes!" Alex decides to come clean. "No. Sorry. Drifted off for a moment there. I was thinking about something."

"And what was so interesting that you had to ignore me?" Cassie bristles, glaring at him fiercely.

Alex pauses, looks down at the sheet with a smile that drops years off his face. "Us, I suppose. What we're going to do next." The exaggerated glare vanishes from the elf queen's face, which brightens with interest.

"Ooh, do you have more ideas?"

"Well, maybe. But I just meant..."

And he tries to explain. That the future feels like some yawning gulf of unknowability, for the pace of his life has outstripped the rules as Alex knew them. He's been lost ever since the day he looked into that visualiser and became what he is now, truth be told. He might not have a job any more. He might not have a family, depending on how they take the news. And with what he knows about the world now, the odds of him reaching the old age surrounded by (possibly pointy-eared?) grandchildren that his internalised ideal life-story demands are looking increasingly slim. But to be able to write down a list of plans, some idea or objective on how to spend his immediate future, at least that anchors him back into something resembling normality. As does the fact that he has someone to spend it with.

See, what you have to understand is that Alex has always looked for some sort of plan, some stability, some comfort in numbers and schedules and lists to drive off the creeping panic that follows his every footstep. Success barely drove it back, in school or university or the workplace; the greater the heights to which one rises, the more dizzying the fear of falling. The highschool genius burns out, the red-brick pressure creates dropouts, he'd be over-educated and underemployed or chewed up by the realities outside his cloistered academia. Then when he ended up in the Scrum, it felt like maybe he could deal with that if he just kept his eyes on the goal.

Never mind that any day he might slip up, fall behind or otherwise reveal himself as the impostor he'd always feared himself to be: _Just hold it off until the golden handshake purges your student loans, Alex, and thank what powers may be you got in before they tripled. Endure the hundred-hour work weeks, save that paycheck you never get to enjoy, aim for a bonus and a mortgage with good rates and maybe then there'll be some stability in your life: Maybe you can adjust to this high-powered hell, or at least leave on your own terms instead of burning out._ He could take his flush CV somewhere where saner hours might make up for lesser pay, take up a hobby or a sport or two, meet people. Live a life less isolated, all by himself in a city so crowded, drifting through the masses feeling so, so alone. With luck he might get his dating life to the point it seemed everyone else had reached eight years ago, and after a few years of seeing what that was like he might one day meet the Miss Right all those middle-class fairy tales talked about.

Then all that burned to the ground. What was left when his life was limited by sun and salt and the guilt that comes from drinking the life of the dying, with a job he couldn't talk about and a touch that meant death to anyone fool enough to want it? And then the second he seemed to be figuring that out and seeing that hey, maybe people can like him after all, here's this cute girl with green hair and thighhigh boots who somehow finds him charming, and if she can put up with hippo arse leeches she can put up with anything so maybe everything's gonna work out okay, well...Here he was. In prison, with the future a yawning gulf in which nothing could be certain. Except for one thing.

And Cassie gets that.

Oh, she isn't in the habit of lingering on the future. She has no shattered dreams, no goals rendered meaningless in a changed world. But that's because she has deliberately dreamed of nothing for a very long time. Life in the Host was all about the short term, about getting through the day, the week, the year. Old _alfar_ do not retire; they run in the rat race until they drop out, and there's no space on the sidelines for spectators. With neither a finishing line nor any true winners perhaps it wasn't a race at all, but a great wheel in which they ran and ran and got nowhere before finally tripping up. There was never any question of relaxing, of putting in the bare minimum, of having fun; it had taken all her effort just to stay in place on that Red Queen's wheel.

Enjoyment came when you grabbed the chance to steal it and hopes for the future were dangerous; to dream about a world of just her and Eldest Sister and Honoured Mother, who did not share the emotional weakness of her daughters but nonetheless loved them a little (for races with long childhoods and no protective instincts die), well...that was a world without her father, and wishing he were gone could be treason.

Much as Urukheim was treason. Cassie submerged herself in movies and plays and all the shiny tat of this new and wondrous world, but she could never imagine finding a place there. In time the Host would come, in time she would bind Alex to their whim, in time the world would burn; the only alternative involved the Host's failure, and to pray for that was most definitely treason. Her time in Leeds was nothing but a buildup to the slaughter, and could never have been anything but a short and sweet diversion.

She wished she could have dragged it out forever. Always delaying, dealing with the promise of death by saying yes, but not today. Cassie wanted to spend forever planning for a war which was always coming but never here, like some Soviet spy who plays the role so well they become their own mask. Let the Revolution come, Comrade.

But let it come tomorrow.

And so she played and watched and laughed and drank and fell in love with that cold _alfar_ stoicism (for these _uruk's_ talk of stiff upper lips was adorably laughable, like a child playing hero), throwing herself into Cassiopeia Brewer's life with the well-trained emptying of the mind which had always kept her sane, and which in the end allowed her to bring her unbound, lethal boyfriend into the heart of her father's fastness. And now here she was, faced for the first time in her life with the prospect of a future. So she's as lost as Alex is, really.  
  
Neither of them are stupid. Both of them know there are still greater powers pulling the strings of their lives. But for the first time in a long time, maybe there's some hope. And amidst all that uncertainty, well, they trust one another. Which isn't much to cling to, but what's trust except a promise you can believe in?

They stare at the paper once the talking is done. The A4 sheet is about half-full. Cassie never got back to the chibi couple on their unicorn and this bothers her, but she feels no real urge to do anything about it. Best leave herself some work for later. Besides, they've been moving closer since they started talking and Alex is nice and warm. Her slitted eyes scan the sheet and she imagines all these dates, all these places, wishing they could start now, right now, just get up and run out the door and go have _fun_.

But they can't.

Cassie sighs, and Alex wilts inside as he watches her staring at the paper. He knows what she's going to say. _Alex, I hate it here._ He hates it too, he does, but to hear it hurts him anyway. She hates being stuck here, bored out of her mind...with him.

He knows that's not it, knows she doesn't blame him, knows it's not him she hates or finds boring and that she'd feel even worse if she were stuck up here alone but it doesn't seem to matter, seems like if only he could have thought of something better back in Malham, realised the situation earlier back in Leeds, maybe they wouldn't be stuck here. He's been told it's ridiculous to blame himself, that he helped save thousands or millions by doing what he did, including the Laundry and his family and _her_ , but god, it doesn't feel like it.

Cassie breathes in.

"Alex..."

And just as he's steeled himself Miss Right swivels to face him and smiles brilliantly, all wide eyes and whipping hair and pearly teeth that dazzle with their brightness.

"I'm so looking forward to this! When we get out of here we're going to have so much fun!

"I can't _wait_!"


	2. Flesh and Bone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Featuring beauty products, grotesque ornaments, traumatic memories, William Shakespeare and the comfort of having somebody to love.

 

"They're all so weak." Cassie frowns, and pokes the glassy bottles on their shelf. "Weirds me out."

"What do you mean?" Alex asks from behind her. He watches the movement of her back with interest, the lithe muscles visible beneath the smooth, soft skin. His eyes trace the tattoos that crisscross her naked body, stark black against almond-coloured skin, and marvels at how they accenuate her beauty. He notices also the function inherent in the designs, each sweep and whorl suggesting some arcane function, the lines plotting graphs of the relations between occult principles. They are tattoos of power, after all. But math and magic take a back seat in Alex's brain for once, little more than curiosities next to the sight of his beautiful girlfriend. He's so lost watching her he almost misses her answer.

"All this _uruk_ perfume. It's watery and weak; I had some stuff back home which was much better. I think it was based off one of the byproducts of wyrmspit."

Alex blanches. "That sounds horrifying."

"What, compared to ambergris? Or civet musk glands?"

Can't argue with that one. "So why was it so strong, then?"

"You get up close with the cavalry mounts, you want something to drown them out. Had a nice pomander to go with it. Used it for opium once or twice too, but I never really got into that. Not good to let your guard down."

"Er." Middle class British kids generally tap out at cannabis, and a younger Alex had read enough about the potential link to schizophrenia to even avoid that.

"Besides, we are soldiers. That sort of thing stops seeming so important after a while in the field, but it's good for morale if you can tell yourself you're not _completely_ disgusting," Cassie taps another bottle, "and frankly, my vassals are avoiding me and I'm starting to get paranoid. What if I've been in _Urukheim_ too long and they think I stink of car exhausts or something?"

This is a weird conversation, but Alex is getting used to such things. "You don't stink of car exhausts. You smell lovely." He pounces, and Cassie squeals as he pulls her down to the bed and buries his face in her neck, nuzzling her.

"Okay, but in theory you would not notice because you would also smell of eeeeee _eee_ -" He kisses her neck deeply and as he does his long and sharp fangs, unfiled these past few weeks, nip lightly against her skin. He didn't mean to do it, but it's a happy accident as far as Cassie is concerned—her entire body quivers, ears fluttering in aroused surprise, and then she grabs him. All conversations are put on hold for a time; their lips, breath, energy and focus are all otherwise occupied. 

Afterwards Cassie runs her fingers through her boyfriend's mussed-up hair, smiling contentedly. She stretches her legs and sighs, then snuggles up closer and kisses his silly rounded ear. "You've gotten a lot more assertive lately, you know that?"

Alex looks surprised. "You think so?"

"Yes _Yes_. I like it."

Alex is comfortable with sex by now. Maybe not wholly confident, but comfortable. Cassie's work in that field brings to mind the idea of curing arachnophobia by locking someone in a room with a box of spiders. Or possibly the crash course Alex used to get his bike licence— relentless practice every day, smushing months of work into a couple of high-intensity weeks. And whilst he's not exactly the most impulsive person, or the most self-assured, it's worth remembering how he once got sufficiently fired up in Cassie's presence that he rushed a group of demonically possessed terror birds on the strength of ill-considered macho instinct. Cassie would actually be rather offended at the suggestion she _couldn't_ transform him into a glowing-eyed, sharp-fanged, inhumanly relentless monster of lust whenever she damn well pleases.

But it's nice that he's starting to act without prompting, less hamstrung by uncertainty and the need for her approval. It's unrealistic to expect getting a girlfriend to solve all a person's issues, but the pleasure of her company and the validation her affection brings isn't to be sniffed at. Who knows? Maybe all this positive reinforcement and emotional support is sowing seeds that might one day bloom into an actually healthy sense of self-regard and personal confidence. Stranger things have happened.

His fingers stroke her back and shoulders, trailing along the lines of the tattoos he'd been admiring earlier. Cassie nibbles on his ear a little more as she caresses him. "Your ears are so small and floppy," she giggles, warm breath tickling his cheeks, "so weird. Whereas this..." it takes little imagination to guess what her hands are doing. He hisses through his teeth at her touch. "Ready again so soon? You'll wear me out! You know, I wonder if the real reason they geld our magi is that they're just jealous..."

"Cassie," it's almost impressive that Alex is able to sound whiny in such a situation, "Castration is not a good topic for dirty ta-"

Then she presses his face against her breasts and all speech is forgotten.

After _that_ , when she's drying off her hair from the shower and relishing how much easier that's gotten since she ditched the braid and hacked most of it off, her thoughts drift back to perfume and makeup and all that silly stuff from earlier. Once she's out, Alex goes in. They've tried fucking in the shower, but these aren't exactly hotel accommodations: the pressure is low, the water takes forever to heat up, the surroundings are drab and there's not much space — none of which stopped them in the initial experiments, but was enough to make the bed a better option going forwards. She's made a note to revisit the topic when they're living somewhere which doesn't suck worse than unicorn shit stinks.

Alex reemerges to find her holding a few tubs of mysterious feminine beauty products, as alien to him as the contents of a witches cauldron. She purses her lips.

"This stuff I like."

Alex starts to dress (since the People have few nudity taboos, Cassie can't be bothered) as he waits for her to elaborate.

"See, back home we were more on the glamour-heavy side of things," she waves a pot of makeup, "oh, we used paints and all, but it was a secondary thing. Part of the last Empress's tastes, I think."  She's talked about this before; any given All-Highest had the central control needed to dictate policy empire-wide, and their vassals invariably aped their preferences. "Whereas these are great!"

Alex takes one and looks at it skeptically. "Pale Grace™, by Bathory Cosmetics. Because It Better Be Bloody Worth It At This Price." His voice is deadpan.

"They're not joking," Cassie replies. "Is expensive. For special occasions! I got some as a Christmas present once back in High School, and I'd position it in my room so all my friends could see that I used it. Then I'd wear something actually affordable day to day. Dead Gods, I was a bit vain back then..." she smiles fondly to herself, then takes the makeup from him and puts it on the shelf with the rest.

The shelf also contains a small gargoyle figurine which has been positioned to face the wall. Cassie swivels it around so it looks at them.

"I still don't get why you have a problem with this thing," she says with a smile.

"It looks at me." Alex replies flatly. "And so does that...that." He gestures angrily at the object next to the gargoyle, which had also been moved to face the wall. Cassie turns it back around again, and Alex winces. "Why don't you throw that away? Or bury it, or something? Seriously?"

"Is a memento," Cassie says smugly. "A trophy," then she turns and prods him fondly, "Anyway, why do you still have the gargoyle if you hate it so much?"

"I didn't know I did have it! It only showed up when my room got cleared out, I swear I never saw it when I moved back to Leeds, it must have been in the bottom of a box or something-"

"But why did you have it at all? Why isn't it at your family's home? Didn't you say you got it as a kid?"

"I was fourteen. And I just said, I don't know why I brought it with me. It just showed up. Why would I want it? It leers at people. Look at it! Creeps leer like that. _Dick_ leers like that. I don't like it."

"Well I think it's neat, so there. Where did you say it came from, again?"

Alex rolls his eyes. "Place called Vyones, in France. We used to go to Europe in the summer holidays, it was nice..." He pauses for a moment at the realisation that whatever his future holds, sunsoaked holidays and beach trips aren't on the cards, "...except once when I was about twelve there was a massive heat wave and I fainted next to an ant hill. Little bastards swarmed all over me; I was scared of them for years. Anyway, Vyones is a town in the south. Technically a city actually, even though it's pretty small." Cassie smiles at that; small by his standards, maybe. Human conceptions of size amuse her.

"...and it is a _massive_ tourist trap. The cathedral there is beautiful, and there's a crypt nearby for a saint who was allegedly borne to heaven bodily by angels, disappearing at the moment of his death. All bullshit but it made for a decent day trip, I suppose. Anyway, the cathedral's famous for its gargoyles; you can buy figurines of them at every shop in the area. So I did, and I instantly regretted it. It was a ripoff, and its creepy." He finishes sourly, glaring at the little plastic edifice.

Cassie pats it on the head. "I think it's cute." Then she waves at the object next to it, "Unlike this piece of trash!" She picks it up and grins at it toothily. It responds in much the same way—there's not much else it can do.

"Hello, dearest stepmother! How do you enjoy being a skull?" She cups the charred object in her hands, laughs in its face. "Being dry bone must get boring, YesYes? Much better to be covered in flesh and coursing with thick warm _blood!_ _"_

Alex twitches at her words, averting his eyes from the skull that once belonged to Highest Liege of Airborne Strike Command. How strange, to think he once saw that empty skull when it was sheathed in skin and filled with thought and life, that it once smirked into his face close enough to smell the breath between those teeth, so obviously inhuman now that there is nothing left but bone. Cassie giggles mockingly at the skull, speaking to it in the tones one would use on a pet, but Alex still remembers the predator's laugh that rippled from the Dragon Queen's lips and suddenly there comes a memory so vivid it's almost hallucination and he's _there_ again, at Malham Cove, pinning Cassie down as the monster approaches with power mace in hand, hoping with a desperation that borders on hysteria that he has not misjudged his plan. He shivers, and for a moment feels very small and helpless and alone.

At that point Cassie leaps into his field of vision once again, landing in a perfect pirouette before posing dramatically, skull still held in hand. She displays the confidence of an empress, parading in new clothes so fine as to be invisible. And somehow he can tell, be it from the melodrama of her movements, the wildness of her eyes or the set of her delicate ears that she's putting on a show for his sake. Trying to kill his discomfort with sheer ridiculousness, to banish her stepmother's ghost far away, or at least to tame it. "Alas poor Yorick," she exclaims in her hammiest tones, nostrils flaring, "I knew her, Alex, a woman of infinite stolidity. She hath borne her own fat ass on a firewyrm's back a thousand times, and now how abhorred in my imagination it is! My gorge rims at it. Here hung those lips that-"

Or maybe it's for both their sakes. He watches her reduce the thing which killed her mother to a mere stage prop, a toy to be laughed at and then put away, and wonders if perhaps this is her way of working out her own feelings for the Mother of Dragons. A way of convincing herself that the nightmare is over, the threat is vanquished, and there is closure to be had now that the dust has settled and the battle is won.

He remembers walking before the arrayed Host before their imprisonment, when she wrenched the thing from atop its scorched spinal column and paraded it before her vassals. Cassie in the lead with him at her side, Pete and Pinky trailing behind as the vicar led the way for the blinded scientist, the four of them flanked by the bleeding, battered and rather diminished knights and sorcerers of the All-Highest's honour guard. Just another one of the brutal displays of force with which an _alfar_ ruler dissuades any effort to circumvent the ruling geass: here, meet the new boss, same as the old boss. The People recoiled from the ruin of what had once been a mighty noble, and doubly so from the weapon with which she had slain it—him, pulled along in her other hand.

He was a walking blasphemy to the alfar, uncut and unrestrained save for some unknowable whim of his alien _uruk_ mind or some power of the new All-Highest, an abomination which had pulled down more Eaters than all the Magi of the Host combined could manage without preparation. The Magi themselves were as disturbed as their fellows, and Alex was glad they couldn't read human facial expressions because then they'd know he was _shitting bricks_ , if they weren't looking in vain for cues from his ears they'd have seen in an instant what a weak little nothing he really was...and seemingly all that kept him sane was how tightly, how desperately Cassie held onto his hand, the realization that she was as terrified as he was, and the determination to at least keep it together for her sake.

And he remembers squeezing her hand as she walked towards the Host's battle commanders, ghoulish figures in ornate armour who knelt before the new empress and her consort. The quick glance and twitch of the lips that was her response. There seemed to be an endless warmth and gratitude conveyed in that moment, that brief expression, and he squeezed her hand again to acknowledge it as they walked, without words, little gestures to say to one another: _We're in this together, yeah? I trust you, you can do this. I'm here for you, whatever that's worth._

Whilst the other elves, for whom human expressions were as alien as human emotions, saw nothing.

He returns to the present to see that Cassie has stopped speaking, to instead stare at her stepmother's clean-picked skull with an unreadable expression. There's silence for the space of a dozen breaths before she puts it back on the shelf. "I was thinking about getting this made into a drinking cup, or something.

"But that sounds like more effort than she deserves."

Then she turns away to touch flesh that courses with thick, warm blood, and leaves it facing the wall.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Better hide your stepmum when the New Management comes a 'knocking, Cassie. 
> 
> I've always been tickled by the Bathory Cosmetics thing; it was only a small joke in Jennifer Morgue, but it stuck with me. And if you're wondering about the figurine, it's because the Third Musketeer of Weird Tales deserves more attention. 'The Maker of Gargoyles' isn't the greatest tale Atlantean High Priest Klarkash-Ton ever wrote, but it's solid and makes for an easy reference.


	3. Fire from your Fingertips

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Alex has something of a captive audience for his brainstorming.
> 
> (Also she's at least as much of a nerd as he is, in her way. Admit it)

 

 

 

"Run this by me again." Cassie says slowly.

"Right, so, I got the idea from the laser anti-drone weapons the USA are testing-"

"Blaster guns, YesYes? Like in Star Wars!"

"I think those were closer to some sort of plasma bolt. Real lasers look very different," Alex once had a copy of The Incredible Cross-Sections and is ready to nitpick, "but I've never liked thinking about things like that too hard. Star Wars is more space fantasy than anything else, trying to make it stick to the rules of real science kinda defeats the point." Don't ask him about his pixel-measuring phase.

"Is fun, though!" Cassie rejoinders. And yes, the combo of a rather nit-picky geek and an officer from a thaumically advanced combined-arms military had skewered the prequel trilogy in a manner that put Mystery Science Theatre 3000 to shame. Cassie in particular had noted that not only were her Host used to facing energy blasts in battle, but the silly space people rushed around in the open without regard for cover or stealth, had no resistance to even the most basic psychic impulses and seemed to use a substance called 'plastoid' for armour, which implied carbon (hello, war gorgons!). She had then talked Alex's stubby human ears off on the subject, smugly sure that if the Galaxy Far, Far Away existed, her People could have curbstomped the lot of them.

Hey, if teddy bears could do it...

"But anyway, lasers. Also when we were talking about how your knights go invisible, that got me thinking. 'Cause it's sort of like what a Hand of Glory does, and Pinky once said you can do this thing with a phased-array mirror which manipulates the light-warping effect into a weapon." It was uncommon now basilisk guns were practical, Pinky had told him with a hint of satisfaction, though Brains had offered that Mr. Howard (ugh) still had a weapon cert for laser pistols made from severed hands. Because of course he did.

"Please don't compare my People's glamours to that primitive tat." Cassie says with exaggerated offense. Alex knows her well enough by now to see through the faux-anger in an instant. "Any stealth spell that lasts for ten minutes and can be beaten by a stiff breeze should not be mentioned in the same breath as us. Is like comparing a thrown rock to a power mace."

"If Pete and Pinky hadn't had a Hand of Glory we'd probably be dead, Cassie. Be kind."

"Hmph."

"Anyway...basically I'm wondering if, supposing you're a person who can safely play with a few spells at once," or a vampire by any other name, "you could create a small area of distorted light that works as a lens and then focus energy through it." He pauses. Even in his areas of expertise, Alex is prone to uncertainty. Especially there, maybe: Impostor Syndrome is one hell of a drug. "I might be wrong, there might be practicalities that make it unfeasible-"

"Is right. You're talking about some sort of scorching lance weapon, YesYes? You could. Our pyromancers can, in theory, but they don't generally bother; is fiddly and difficult next to just dropping a load of heat on somebody, apparently. Besides, a bit precise and small-scale for our sort of warfare," He looks slightly disheartened so she kisses him on the cheek, "Of course they've got nothing on you, honey." He blushes a little, than continues.

"Well, then I really started thinking. One of the big things you hear about is pulsed lasers, okay? Where the beam isn't continuous, but instead fires on and off at high speed. They're great for cutting because they can focus on vapourizing a specific point instead of heating the whole object, there's less heat dispersal, they can't be disrupted by vapourized material scattering the incoming light the way a continuous beam can, stuff like that." He's not an expert on this stuff, but it's fun to spitball about it.

"There's weapons that work on these principles: Some to temporarily blind people, others for crowd control...one ablates the target's surface into plasma--clothes, skin, whatever, and then thermal expansion blows you off your feet. You can't even get back up, because the process causes an electric charge which zaps you. The Americans actually cancelled that one because you could very easily create torture weapons." That's what they tell people at any rate, and what Alex doesn't know about the Black Chamber's R&D won't hurt him. Hopefully.

Pulsed laser. Okay. Cassie's following that.

"So what if I wrapped an energy-generating macro into my counting loop?"

It clicks now.

"I haven't got the details on how to do it because Captain Marks would throw a fit, but the pyromancy spells your PHANGs use are apparently pretty simple. Alter them to fit if necessary, maybe work on the loop, it might not be fit for purpose as it stands..." Alex realizes he's rambling and gets to the point: "you might be able to make a directed phased laser weapon out of it. Play with the speeds a bit, find the right macro to direct the light, a bit of fiddling...it could work. Maybe."

"And how strong would it be?" Cassie asks, enchanted now.

"I don't know. Like, this is barely even back-of-the-napkin calculations, it might not even work. But at a guess? Precise enough to safely incapitate one person, maybe even do surgery...but I'm not that sort of doctor. Surgeon. Whatever."

"And on the other extreme?" Cassie prompts. It's cute when he gets engrossed in things like this.

"Depends on how much power you can safely pump through it, I guess. There was a similar thing in the Cold War called Project Excalibur, used nuclear bombs, it didn't actually work but the theory's sound as far as I can see. The lens might be a limiting factor, or the wards you'd need to survive firing it, but otherwise? The only limit would be how much energy you can generate."

"One of my pyromancers slagged a whole city block back in Leeds," Cassie says mildly, and Alex shudders as he thinks about it. He'd _been_ in that office a few weeks beforehand. Cassie shivers too, albeit in a rather more pleasant manner than he does, her mind going full shonen manga for a second as she pictures skyscrapers being cut in half.

"I mean, well, yeah that could get pretty terrifying." Alex reminds himself that once his training is complete, he'll be classed under official treaties as some sort of tank. Maybe this is a pipedream borne of boredom that he can't even factcheck against Wikipedia right now, but sooner or later he's probably going to have to get used to the whole Great Power/Great Responsibility thing. Except obviously he'll be acting under orders so it won't quite be the same, and he won't be dressing up in a dumb costume because seriously, who does that?

Supposing they don't try to hang him as a traitor or something...

Whilst Cassie figures that whilst Alex getting all technical and obsessive is cute in a dorky sort of way, the image of a weapon like that is breathtaking. And if she were to actually see her adorable boyfriend shooting magic deathrays from his fingers like Emperor Frieza, well...she'd probably need to go have a lie down. After clocking him over the head and dragging him with her, of course.

This whole thing is making her restless. As Alex continues muttering to himself and lamenting the lack of textbooks and papers that would help him in his spur-of-the-moment quest, Cassie decides to take action. She slides over and rests her chin against his shoulder, making a quiet _meeping_ noise. He turns to look at her, concentration broken; sure, he's an obsessive nerd, but that means little when Miss Right wants attention. His maniac pixie drapes herself across his body and flutters her ears at him, an effect similar to batting her eyelashes--which she's also doing, fusing human and elfin body language in a manner most charming.

"Hello, you." He wraps his arms around her as she presses up close, her chest squashing pleasantly against his and her sweet scent filling his nose as they embrace.

It's a delicious thought, but there are other uses for fingers. Especially when your boyfriend can move his so fast they turn invisible. Magic indeed.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sci-Fi arguments: Because the real first time Bob and Alex met was in a flamewar on spacebattles.com or somewhere back in 2006. Top level canon, don't @ me


End file.
